


The Silence of Astounded Souls

by tessiete



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied Past Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Mandalore, basically like the Empire isn't super nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28621599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessiete/pseuds/tessiete
Summary: She had thought that, at least this time, they might escape without attracting notice. The base was abandoned. The information they’d been sent to retrieve simple reconnaissance. They’d gone in expecting to find nothing, and needing only to confirm the rats had fled ahead of their occupation. No traps, and no loose ends.But of course, there was a hitch. There was always a hitch."There's something in the last cell."
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	The Silence of Astounded Souls

**Author's Note:**

> I am posting this literally so that I can link it on Tumblr. I'm probs gonna be MIA for at least a month, and I don't want to lose my interest or my place, but this will be a mostly Korkie story. I'm not ashamed, friends. Just confused. Why? Why do I love him so much?

* * *

_Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls._

_\- Sylvia Plath_

* * *

“There’s something in the last cell.”

She had thought that, at least this time, they might escape without attracting notice. The base was abandoned. The information they’d been sent to retrieve simple reconnaissance. They’d gone in expecting to find nothing, and needing only to confirm the rats had fled ahead of their occupation. No traps, and no loose ends.

But of course, there was a hitch. There was always a hitch.

And so, Wyla Voxx, with two years experience running sabotage missions, her crew a small three man team of insurrectionists with no ties to anywhere, or anyone thanks, in part, to the rise of a new Empire, is forced to make a difficult choice. Do they open the cell? Or does she turn away?

The cell, if it is occupied, can house nothing of importance, or it would not have been left behind. Anything remaining might very well be a trap, playing on their pity and curiosity.

And yet...the sweep would not be complete without a thorough inspection of every room. And Wyla Voxx has never been one to turn away.

So she stalks back down the stone hall, the damp of the earth inching down the duracrete walls in silver streaks, and stops before the barred door of the last cell. She raises her blaster to her shoulder.

“Open it up,” she says.

And so her second does. He’s a strong man from Espirion, though in truth, he has never set foot on that planet, and the door yields beneath the full weight of his body, opening outwards by physical force in the old fashion.

Inside, the hold is dark. Only a thin sliver of moonlight breaches the room, pouring in from the narrow window high in the wall, casting the shadows of bars over the floor like the blackened ribs of some decaying beast. Something moves in the corner, and Wyla lifts her weapon, and plants her feet. Her flare is too close in her hand, and the brightness of it only obscures the dark around her more. It were better she were blind.

“Hold it,” she says. “Is someone hiding back there?”

There is no answer. The battery core of her blaster whines high with a killing charge.

“I’m armed, and I’m not alone. I need you to come out now, and make no sudden movements.”

She waits, her breath hanging as mist in the air, marking out the seconds and the measure of her patience. Without wavering in her aim, she motions for Behan to join her. The girl accedes, bringing her own light with her. With a nod of encouragement, Behan takes one shuffling step, then another, inching closer and closer to the far corner of the room. The grasping hands of shadows eventually unfurl, chastened by the light, to reveal a ragged bundle of rags, the same shade as the night. Beneath Behan’s flare, the bundle seems to breathe, and Wyla cannot say if it is the revelation of life, or a trick of the light.

“I’ve got you covered,” she says, at Behan’s inquiring look, and she lets her finger settle just over the trigger as the girl raises her hand to the blankets and throws them aside.

They tear away with little resistance, disgorging their wrinkled belly of its wretched, sallow contents, leaving it to spill listless across the duracrete floor.

It is a man - or more, perhaps a boy - so pale as to be translucent, with blond hair, and blue lips, and lashes so fair they are the mere spectres of themselves. He makes no response to their attack. He only shivers a little as his skin touches stone, and curls about himself to spare himself the cold.

Behan looks at Wyla, and Sor-Inso behind who both regard the boy with mutual expressions of confusion not quite turned fear.

“Who is it?” Sor asks. “I thought this base was meant to be abandoned.”

“It is,” says Wyla. “It was meant to be. Whoever this is, he was left behind.”

Behan has braved the distance where Wyla and Sor have not, and she sets her flare aside to take the pale hand.

“He’s cold as ice,” she says, turning to Wyla with wide and piteous eyes.

Wyla swallows, unlocking her jaw by her own will, and calls to the man again.

“Who are you?” she demands. “Why are you here?”

A reply of sorts is spoken, but it is thin and unintelligible, carried forth by the release of yet another phantasmal breath.

“Do you work for the Empire?” Wyla presses, raising her voice as much as she dares, and keeping her weapon trained.

But Behan has had enough.

“For stars’ sake,” she scolds, throwing down her gloves, and shaking herself free of her pack and parka. “He’s ill. He can barely speak, let alone hold a blaster. He’s not going to shoot you.”

Wyla drops her blaster to her hip as Behan leans down over the body, obscuring him beneath her coat, and hiding him from Wyla’s aim. Sor’s posture, too, relaxes into something cavalier, and he turns his back to make for the exit without concern.

“We’d better get back to the ship,” he says. “Rendezvous with the nest, and let them know they’re clear to send a scavenging crew.”

Wyla holsters her weapon, and shakes her fingers free of the tension pressed into them by adrenaline. “Alright,” she says. “Grab the drivers, and let’s go. Behan -?”

“What about him?”

“What _about_ him?” says Sor, slinging a bag of drivers and circuit boards pried from various droids and stations over his shoulder. “Imps don’t want him, why should we?”

“He’s _sick!_ ” she insists.

“Then he won’t suffer long,” Sor retorts.

“ _Wyla_ -” Behan turns her appeal to Wyla. It’s her call. She hesitates.

“It could still be a trap,” she says. “He might be an Imp.”

“He definitely looks like one,” Sor grunts, hefting the bag higher. “Mousy little thing.”

“Then why’d they leave him here like this? When he’s no harm to anyone, and we could just as well have missed him entirely, and left?”

“We still might,” Wyla threatens. But she sighs, and shakes her head, rolling her eyes at her own traitorous heart. She steps close to where Behan sits on her heels, her hand running in soothing circles over the man’s back, though he seems insensate to her touch. Wyla taps him on the cheek, rousing him to meager consciousness. “Hey,” she says. “Who are you?”

A flutter of words come out, torn upon the ragged strings of his voice.

_“Naasade. Ni ganar nayc gai, nayc aliit. Ni cuy' naasade._ ”

But Wyla doesn’t know them.

“Do you speak Basic?” she asks. But he doesn’t respond. She doffs her gloves, and reaches beneath the coat and blankets to see if there is anything on his person that might answer for him. An identchit, perhaps. Or a registered holocard. A tag upon a uniform. But there is nothing. He is bare beneath the rags, his skin turning to gooseflesh at her touch, and he shivers, pulling away. The feathered strands of his hair fall aside, and on his neck she sees a scar. Once an open wound, bloody and charred by the brand against his skin, the mark is now shimmering white in the light of the moon: a lily, with a broken stem.

“Who are you?” she asks again. “What have you done?”

His voice, when it comes again, is less than the wind in space, so threadbare she might just have imagined it, but for the look on Behan’s face.

“I killed the Duchess of Mandalore.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Translations of Mando'a:
> 
> "Naasade. Ni ganar nayc gai, nayc aliit. Ni cuy' naasade." ... "Nobody. I have no name, no family. I am nobody."


End file.
